Books
-
Congress Signed the Checks, but Artists Paid the Price
In “The Playbook,” James Shapiro offers a resonant history of the Federal Theater Project, a Depression-era program that gave work…
-
Why Are Divorce Memoirs Still Stuck in the 1960s?
Recent best sellers have reached for a familiar feminist credo, one that renounces domestic life for career success.
-
Feeling Lonely? Grouchy? Murderous? There’s a Spell for That.
In “Cunning Folk,” Tabitha Stanmore takes us back to a time when the use of “service magic” was an everyday…
-
The Brilliant Comic Who Shined Brightest Out of the Spotlight
A new biography of the performer, writer and director Elaine May has the intensity to match its subject.
-
Divorced, Disheveled and Hiking Toward Love
In David Nicholls’s “You Are Here,” a boggy trek through the English countryside becomes an unlikely impetus for midlife romance.
-
An Erotic Story of Love and Obsession in 1960s Amsterdam
An unlikely romance blooms in Yael van der Wouden’s tricky, remarkable novel, “The Safekeep.”
-
The Women of Greek Myths Are Finally Talking Back
Novels that take on the marginalized or vilified women in mythology are flooding bookstores and reigniting questions about who gets…
-
He Took a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good 800-Mile Hike So You Don’t Have To
In “A Walk in the Park,” Kevin Fedarko recounts a trek-of-a-lifetime that becomes a nightmare in one of America’s most…
-
The Best Books of the Year (So Far)
Fiction | Nonfiction We’re almost halfway through 2024 and we at The Book Review have already written about hundreds of…
-
Why Forgettable Commencement Speeches Are a Good Thing
At a time of extreme polarization on campus, the banality of the graduation ceremony is a tradition worth celebrating.